


Flames Within Us That Rise

by MorbidKitty



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Fluffy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, New Year's Eve, New Year's Fluff, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 16:21:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13193898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorbidKitty/pseuds/MorbidKitty
Summary: Sigyn, newly single, is prepared to spend her New Year alone until the unexpected happens. Trust Loki to shake up any plans for solitude.





	Flames Within Us That Rise

It got so dark and cold in New York during winter. And it was _perfect._

Sigyn Jones stood barefoot in Pepper Potts’ office in Stark Industries’ New York Facility, watching the slow trickle of traffic far below. She rested her forehead against the smooth coolness of the window, her breath creating the perfect misty canvases for drawing smiling faces and flowers to keep her company. It was after hours in December, mere days from the New Year. To say it was quiet at Stark Industries, no matter what the location, would be an understatement. The majority of personnel was safely tucked away at home spending time with their families, others in New York and Los Angeles, while some had traveled much further to see their loved ones.

Sigyn was grateful her boss had chosen to spend her Christmas in New York instead of the warmth of Los Angeles. When the opportunity to jump on a private plane from LA to New York had presented itself, Sigyn hadn’t hesitated to come back to work as soon as possible after Christmas Day. Although Pepper had at first insisted her personal assistant take some time off, she had quickly withdrawn her objections when she had spotted the sudden lack of a ring on Sigyn’s finger. Even so, Pepper hadn’t mentioned it, not once, during the flight, and had simply given Sigyn a gift card for a spa day.

In return Sigyn had made sure to order her boss fresh flowers for the day she returned to her office in Los Angeles – and to not ask about Pepper’s unexpected decision to spend the New Year in New York. If Sigyn’s suspicions were correct, as they tended to be, Pepper likely had plans involving Tony.

No such entertainment for Sigyn, though. Most people would be bored in a deserted office with nothing to do, but she welcomed the still silence and the biting cold of New York. It was a good, calm kind of silence, unlike the half-empty apartment that waited for her in Los Angeles. But with the clock ticking closer and closer to eight, Sigyn was running out of excuses to dawdle at the office.

She turned away from the window and walked over to Pepper’s desk to organize the papers on it one more time before slipping her high heels back on again.

The almost perfect silence was broken by someone clearing their throat behind her. Breath hitching, Sigyn spun around and screamed as she recognized the visitor. “Oh god! _Loki_!”

“Hello to you as well,” Loki said sounding almost offended.

“Don’t sneak up on people like that!” she hissed, hand over her heart. “You scared the shit out of me!”

Sigyn had seen Loki a fair number of times, mainly whenever SHIELD had business with Stark Industries and Pepper’s presence was required. For the most part, Loki had just hovered in the meeting room, appearing politely disinterested, as Thor participated in the discussions alongside Fury, Natasha and Tony. More often than not, whenever her eyes had strayed to the raven-haired god, she had caught him looking at her. Fine, she could deal with that. But what made the occasions unnerving was that he was never the one to look away when that happened.

Otherwise, her interaction with Loki had been limited to very brief greetings, although once he had held a door for her, an impossibly haughty and regal look on his deceptively perfect face.

Now, standing in the middle of Pepper’s office, he looked like he was about to go on a date. He was wearing black slacks and a shirt with a dark green vest on top. A pair of very shiny and pointy leather shoes finished the look.

“Actually, never mind the sneaking around bit – why are you here anyway?” she asked quickly, coming back to herself. She wondered if she could reach the alarm under Pepper’s desk quickly enough if things came down to it.

Loki pressed his lips into a tight line, possibly to stop a retort, before answering. “Thor had some business here with Stark. Something something, energy cells, SHIELD, blah blah blah. It must be very secret and exciting. I didn’t really listen. I would have preferred to stay at the Avengers Facility, hideous as it is, but for some reason everyone seems to prefer it when I’m no more than five paces away from my brother.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Sigyn said, her voice tinged with amusement, despite her slight wariness of the god.

“Midgardians and their trust issues,” Loki quipped, a barely discernible smirk at the corner of his mouth.

“Shame on us, truly,” she said, straightening. “Still, it’s a bit late for an appointment, don’t you think?”

He sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets. “You wound me. Hasn’t Thor told everyone about how I’ve reformed? Look, just call the lobby and ask – they’ll tell you I’m here with Thor.”

She waved a hand dismissively. “Fine, I believe you. What brought you here, then? This is Ms. Potts’ office.”

He smiled and regarded her with shiny eyes. “It’s an awfully big building. I suppose I just got lost.” He chuckled. “That was a lie.” He walked towards the photographs on the wall before looking back at her again. “Someone said you were in town. And then someone else mentioned you were still working at this hour. I just came to see if that really was the case.”

Sigyn narrowed her eyes at him.

“Isn’t this a bit of an odd time to be working late?” he continued, an unreadable expression on his face as he picked up a book laying on a vitrine to browse it absent-mindedly.

“Why do you care about my working hours?”

“I’m simply trying to learn about Midgardian culture, now that we are stuck here, thanks to the leadership skills of my brother,” he deflected. “I can’t imagine even the great Stark Industries to be a hive of activity around Christmas and New Year.”

“There’s always something to do when you are a PA.”

Loki sneered and set the book back in its place. “Where’s your ring?”

On instinct, Sigyn grabbed her left hand in her right to hide her fingers. “My what?”

“The last time I saw you, there was a big shiny rock on your ring finger. Just wondering what happened to it.”

Suddenly tired and hoping to shut him up, she blurted out her answer. “If you must know: I broke up with my fiancé three days ago.”

Smugly, she noted that Loki actually looked a bit taken aback before he recovered and schooled his features. “Three days ago was – uh, what do you call it – Christmas Eve.”

Ah. She hadn’t considered he would actually make any note the timing. “Yeah,” she admitted, berating herself for how thin her voice sounded. “Christmas Eve.”

And with that Sigyn was suddenly back at that small dinner table in their – no – _her_ home, pushing her food around the plate as she listened to her now ex-fiancé reasoning for why it was time to call it quits, that they were both unhappy – true but _please listen_ – and that life had other things planned for both.

Shit. Sigyn turned away to hide her quivering lip and grabbed a tissue from her pocket to deal with the inevitable.

“Well… I can see why that’s unfortunate timing, I suppose,” Loki pondered. “Did he do something wrong?”

“No.”

“Because if he did… I could, well, _do_ something.”

“Like what?” She challenged, discreetly dabbing at her eyes.

Loki rocked on his heels with a smile like a razorblade. “Give him the fright of his life.”

She huffed. “I think not, Loki.”

“Perhaps I got it wrong,” he said brightly. “Was it you who did something wrong?”

“No!” she barked, turning to him and regretting it immediately.

Eyes widening, he held up his hands in a show of surrender. “I can see that I’ve upset you.”

“Who do you think you are anyway? Barging in here like you own the place just to – I don't know – get on my damn nerves.”

“That was not my intention,” he said. “Well, it was not my only intention.”

Leaning on Pepper’s desk, Sigyn wiped her nose and only looked at Loki again once she was sure the bout of crying had subsided.

“What's with the outfit?” she asked angrily.

“Blends in better than my Asgardian garments.”

“You call that blending in?” she said indignantly, making haphazard gestures at his ensemble.

“As close as someone like myself can,” he bragged, obviously pleased with himself.

“It looks like Armani.”

“Does it? And what does Armani look like?”

Harrumphing, she refused to tell him exactly what she thought it was making him look like. Loki opened his mouth to, possibly to prod her further, but was interrupted rudely.

“Loki?” Thor's voice boomed in the hallway.

Rolling his eyes, Loki strode to the door. “Thor?”

“We're leaving.”

“A minute.”

“Loki...”

“I said a minute.” He closed the door, not bothering to hear his brother's response. “It seems I have to get going.”

“Finally.”

“Oh, surely I can't be that terrible,” he taunted, but then his shoulders slumped. For a moment, Sigyn thought he was actually pouting. He took a deep breath, possibly to put his personality in check. “How do Midgardians do this anyway,” he muttered almost to himself.

Sigyn crossed her arms and waited, still half-sitting on the desk. Step by step, Loki came closer and closer until she had to tilt her head a bit to look at his face. She thought he was wearing a cologne of some sort.

“What are you doing for the New Year?” he asked, regarding her carefully.

Sigyn frowned. “Why – ”

“Just… answer the question. It’s the last one I have for you today. Scout’s honor. Pinky promise.”

She opened her mouth to argue.

“Please.”

She dropped her gaze and shrugged. “Have a drink at the hotel bar and call it an early night?”

“No plans, then.”

Sigyn gave him a tight smile.

“Loki!” Thor’s voice sounded closer than it had been a moment ago.

“Say hello to Tony and Thor from me,” Sigyn said. She would have pushed herself away from the desk but with how close Loki was standing, she thought better of it.

“Naturally,” he murmured before turning and heading for the door.

 Before leaving the room, he looked over his shoulder. “Sigyn,” he called softly.

 “Yes, Loki?”

“I am sorry about how your Christmas turned out. Good night.” He slipped out, leaving Sigyn staring after him in bewilderment.

 *

The next day as she checked her email after arriving at the office, Sigyn was surprised to find an invitation to a small New Year’s party at the Avengers Facility, just outside of the city. She slammed her laptop shut as if it had burned her and stayed away from it until lunch time, hoping that by then new emails would have filled her inbox.

No such luck.

When the invitation was still the newest message in her inbox in the afternoon, Sigyn finally typed her RSVP. In mere seconds, she got a response telling her a car would pick her up from her hotel on Sunday evening.

She spent the rest of her day picking up her phone only to put it down again as she debated whether to call her best friend or not.

As she arrived at the office on Friday, two days before the party, Sigyn found a small black box tied with a golden ribbon resting on her desk. A small note with her name in elegant cursive was leaning on it.

Confused, she opened the note and read it three times, each time slower and more disbelieving than the last.

_I saw this in a jewelry shop and thought it would be a nice, albeit late, Christmas present. If my memory serves me right, and it always does, you were wearing a similar bracelet some weeks ago._

Underneath, his name was written with elegant swooping loops in jet black ink.

Picking up the box, she pulled slowly on the ribbon, expecting it to turn into a snake or perhaps a tarantula. She peered inside to see a brilliant pendant in the shape of a snowflake resting on a dark blue velvet cushion. She took it in her hand carefully and studied the intricate details. She turned it over to see her name carved on the back.

Sigyn stood still for a good while, staring at the elegant lettering, her mind completely blank. Hesitantly, she finally put the pendant on, its long chain shimmering like water. As the dread of being the target of a horrid prank subsided, she almost forgot about the pendant around her neck. When she later caught her reflection in the restroom mirror, she realized a small smile had made its way onto her face.

She spent the entirety of her Saturday watching terrible Christmas movies in her hotel room in an effort to not think about anyone with black hair, long legs and infuriating smiles.

 *

“Sigyn, right?” Tony greeted her, shoving a glass of champagne into her hand the moment she stepped into the designated party space at the Avengers Facility. “Glad you could make it. The company here is mostly terrible, but the music is absolutely fantastic.”

“Thanks to you, no doubt,” she said, looking around for familiar faces. Thor waved at her from the far end of the room. “Thank you for inviting me, you really didn’t have to.”

“I didn’t so don’t thank me,” Tony deadpanned, his eyes falling to her shoes. “Didn’t I…”

“Yes, you did,” Sigyn admitted. “They were too small for her.”

“Bummer. They look great on you, though. Go. Mingle! I think you’ll like Banner, in particular.”

“Thanks, I think I’ll go and say – ”

Thor moved to reveal Loki sitting behind him on a sofa, his gaze glued to the snowflake pendant resting delicately against her chest. When a heartbeat later he looked at her face and got up to walk over to her, Sigyn felt more than a little breathless at the wicked promise in his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Yours truly recently broke up with her spouse of seven years, so this is just shameless fluff, very untypical of me, to cheer myself up. People survive worse things, like divorces with kids involved. No need to think little old me won't pull through.
> 
> My beta is a treasure. I credit her for flawless proofing and the suggestion to borrow the title from Nikita Gill's poem Never Forget. As well as for being there for me when I need it more than ever.


End file.
